Chapter 36: Chapter36-Mirror Dungeon
Whatever the reason, I wasn’t about to let the opportunity go to waste.
I immediately picked up my pace and broke into a run.
Once I got close enough to a group of skeletons, I tossed one of the bottles high into the air. Then I quickly pulled a pistol from my inventory and fired.
Bang!
The bullet pierced the bottle instantly.
Glass exploded outward, and healing potion rained down on the skeletons below.
The effect was immediate.
The instant the liquid touched them, several skeletons froze and let out loud, broken cries. Their bones began dissolving wherever the potion landed, slowly melting away as though acid had been poured over them.
Healing potions were made for humans.
Monsters reacted very differently.
Their bodies weren’t compatible with the healing properties, so instead of restoring them, the potion damaged them. It wasn’t enough to kill them outright, but it was more than enough to cause serious pain.
At least ten or fifteen skeletons were currently standing there, screaming as parts of their bodies dissolved.
What caught my attention, however, wasn’t the damage.
It was their reaction.
None of them attacked.
They all carried weapons.
Most of them had swords.
Yet not a single one rushed at me.
If anything, the skeletons farther back seemed even more eager to retreat.
And somehow... I could swear I was seeing fear in their eyes.
That wasn’t right.
It didn’t make any fucking sense.
Even if they were only Lesser-rank monsters, they should’ve gone berserk by now. They should’ve charged at me like crazed animals.
Instead, they kept backing away.
Then a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Wait. Something was off.
I still had another healing potion bottle in my hand.
Naturally, their attention should’ve been fixed on that. It was the thing hurting them, after all.
But when I looked more carefully, I realized they weren’t looking at the bottle.
They were looking at... my shirt?
I narrowed my eyes and studied them again.
Even the skeletons writhing in pain had their gazes fixed on the same spot.
Not my face.
Not the potion.
My shirt.
A chill ran through me.
What the hell was going on?
After a moment, I decided to stop guessing.
"System," I asked inwardly, "can you explain what’s happening right now?"
A message immediately appeared in my mind.
[Host, those skeletons are not terrified of your healing potion.]
[They are terrified of your shirt.]
"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked.
Another message appeared.
[Host, your shirt carries the aura of a Master-rank hunter.]
I just stood there, processing.
Then everything clicked into place.
Wait. No way. Allen?
I looked down at my shirt.
So he hadn’t given this to me just for the meeting with the HIST members.
He’d given it to me for the dungeon.
Then another thought occurred to me.
Did that mean he never believed in my plan from the start?
Well... who could blame him?
Even I had to admit it wasn’t exactly a great plan.
Still, I’d believed it could work.
Apparently, Allen had decided to prepare a safety net just in case.
A grin slowly spread across my face.
So that was why he hadn’t seemed worried.
And why he’d smiled before I entered the dungeon.
He already knew what would happen.
With the aura of a Master-rank hunter clinging to this shirt, any monster below Rare rank would instinctively stay away from me.
Fuck. Allen was a genius.
My attention shifted back to the skeletons.
When I glanced at them, my grin widened.
Poor bastards.
You guys are about to become experience points.
I quickly opened my character interface and checked my remaining stock of healing potions.
---
Healing Potions:
SS Rank: 498
S Rank: 500
A Rank: 1000
B Rank: 5000
---
Hmm. Almost Seven thousand in total. That was more than enough.
"Alright," I muttered.
"Let’s level up."
I turned my attention back to the skeletons that had been hit by the healing potion earlier.
They were still crying out, but their condition had noticeably improved.
The damaged sections of their bodies were already regenerating. Bones that had been partially dissolved were slowly rebuilding themselves.
Looks like their recovery abilities had finally kicked in.
Good. That was exactly what I wanted.
I tightened my grip on the remaining potion bottle and took a step forward.
I opened my inventory and pulled out a bottle filled with red liquid.
Human blood.
More specifically, AB-negative blood.
The reason I had it was simple.
I wanted to test a theory.
A few days ago, when I first learned this was a Special Rank Dungeon, I’d nearly given up on the whole idea. While scrolling through social media one evening, I came across a science video.
In it, a scientist demonstrated something called the Twin Blood Effect.
According to him, mixing AB-negative blood with a healing potion could amplify the potion’s effectiveness by nearly a hundred times.
The moment I heard that, a ridiculous thought crossed my mind.
What would happen if I used that combination on monsters?
Normally, human blood acted like a powerful stimulant for them. It could dramatically increase their recovery speed by almost a hundred times.
That raised a simple question.
If a healing potion accelerated the decay of an undead monster’s body, and human blood accelerated its regeneration, what would happen if both effects were applied at the same time?
My theory was straightforward.
The monster wouldn’t be able to fully heal.
But it wouldn’t be able to fully decay either.
Its body would be trapped between the two effects, endlessly regenerating and breaking down at the same time.
An infinite loop.
That was the theory, anyway.
Whether it actually worked was another question entirely.
There was only one way to find out.
I tossed the bottle into the air above the wounded skeletons and immediately pulled the trigger.
The bullet shattered the glass.
Blood rained down onto the skeletons that were still crying out in pain.
I waited, watching for the reaction.
For the first several seconds, nothing happened.
I watched closely for any sign of change.
Then I saw it.
The skeletons’ bodies were no longer decaying.
But they weren’t regenerating either.
That wasn’t what I’d expected.
One by one, the affected skeletons seemed to settle into a strange equilibrium.
Both the decay and the healing stopped.
Their wounds remained unchanged, neither worsening nor recovering.
It was as if the two opposing effects had locked each other in place.
The skeletons could still move, but the damaged parts of their bodies remained damaged.
Their regenerative abilities seemed completely suppressed.
Or at least, that’s how it looked.
I couldn’t tell whether the effect was permanent. I’d only know once the potion’s influence faded. Until then, all I could do was watch.
I studied the skeletons carefully.
Hmm... The trick had worked.
Not perfectly, but it worked.
I still had no way of knowing whether the effect was permanent, but one thing was obvious.
The combination had successfully neutralized their rapid regeneration.
That alone made it a valuable counter against monsters that relied heavily on healing abilities.
Satisfied with the result, I glanced at my watch.
10:54 A.M.
Alright.
Time to finish this.
I opened my inventory and pulled out several more bottles of blood and healing potions.
Just as I was about to throw them at the remaining skeletons, a massive holographic screen suddenly appeared overhead.
[Irregularities Detected!]
[Monsters Not Attacking the Individual!]
[Forcing Monsters to Attack the Individual!]
[Unsuccessful!]
[Second Attempt!]
[Unsuccessful!]
[Forcefully Modifying Dungeon!]
My stomach dropped.
What?
I froze.
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
Mirror Dungeons weren’t meant to modify themselves twice.
As far as I knew, nothing like that had ever happened before
Almost immediately, my thoughts jumped to the most likely cause.
The shirt.
No way...
Was Allen’s aura responsible for this?
The skeletons were refusing to attack because they were terrified of the Master-rank aura lingering on my clothes.
Which meant...
Allen’s safety measure had accidentally triggered the dungeon’s correction mechanism.
Before I could think any further, the messages changed again.
[Successful!]
[Dungeon Modified!]
[Difficulty Increased: Easy → Hardest]
[500 Rare-Rank Monsters Will Be Summoned In 30 Minutes]
For a moment, I simply stared at the screen.
Surely I’d misread it. I checked again.
Then a third time.
No way. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Five hundred Rare-rank monsters?
That wasn’t a difficulty increase.
That was pure insanity.
Rare-rank monsters were on the same level as the dungeon boss.
Which meant that, in thirty minutes, this dungeon was effectively going to unleash five hundred creatures comparable to the boss.
My stomach sank.
This was far worse than I’d imagined.
The whole reason I’d entered this dungeon was because I had a plan.
A reckless plan, sure, but it was still a plan.
Now the dungeon had taken that plan and thrown it straight into the trash.
I looked up at the countdown message hanging in the sky.
Thirty minutes.
That was all the time I had left.
Fuck.
What the hell was I supposed to do now?
I only had—Wait.
If the shirt was what kept the skeletons from attacking me, then maybe all I had to do was take it off.
If I removed it, there was a chance the dungeon would return to its original state.
I wasn’t sure if that would actually work, but it was worth trying.
Before that, though, I decided to make use of the situation while I still could.
I quickly started throwing healing potion bottles and blood-filled bottles into different sections of the skeleton horde.
One after another, I fired my pistol, shattering each bottle in midair.
Glass burst apart.
Potion and blood rained down on the skeletons below.
Soon, more than three hundred skeletons were standing where they were, shrieking as their bones slowly dissolved under the effects of the healing potion.
The remaining two thousand or so had retreated too far for me to reach them with a throw.
That was fine.
The skeletons in the front had already taken heavy damage.
Once I was done, I returned to where I’d planted my swords and reached for my shirt.
Then I paused.
Huh?
Something felt off.
I tried unbuttoning it. Nothing happened.
I frowned and tried again. Still nothing.
For some reason, my fingers couldn’t even touch the buttons.
A bad feeling immediately crept into my mind.
Don’t tell me... Did Allen actually do something to stop me from taking this shirt off?
No way. Right?
I gave up on the buttons and grabbed the shirt itself.
Then I pulled. Hard.
Come off already.
Nothing. I pulled even harder. It didn’t help.
I tried tearing it apart by force.
The fabric didn’t even budge. Not a single thread came loose.
Damn it! Allen.
You basically turned this thing into a walking death trap.
After several more failed attempts, I finally stopped.
There was no point wasting any more time.
The shirt wasn’t coming off.
Which meant I needed a different plan.
At this point, I only had two options.
The first was simple.
Forget the Teleportation Skill Book.
Turn around.
Leave the dungeon.
As for the exit requirements, I didn’t have to worry about them. Before entering, I’d already asked the system about that issue, and surprisingly, it had given me a solution.
Getting out was still possible.
The second option was far riskier.
Keep moving forward. Find the cave. Lure out the Dullahan. Take the Teleportation skill. Use it immediately.
Then teleport back to the dungeon entrance and escape before those five hundred monsters showed up.
Objectively speaking, the first option was smarter. Safer. The route any reasonable person would take.
But...
I wasn’t leaving the Teleportation Skill Book behind.
I’d come all this way for it.
I was taking the risk.
Even if it meant gambling with my life.
Not that I planned on dying.
In fact, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t.
With my decision made, I grabbed both swords and broke into a run.
Darn these guys.
I needed to get to the cave as quickly as possible.
That didn’t mean I was going to ignore the skeletons along the way, though.
As I sprinted forward, I swung my sword at an injured skeleton and crushed its skull.
The creature collapsed instantly.
A system message immediately appeared before my eyes.
[Congratulations, Host! You have been rewarded with a Monster Essence for slaying a Lesser Rank Monster! The Monster Essence has been added to your Character Profile!]
My eyes brightened.
Right. Might as well farm as many essences as I could while I had the chance.
Free essence points were hard to come by.
With that in mind, I kept running.
Whenever a wounded skeleton happened to be in my path, I cut it down without slowing my pace. Some lost their heads. Others had their skulls shattered by a quick swing of my sword.
As I ran, I glanced at my watch.
---
Name: Michael Frostburne
Total Rules Broken: 0
Time: 10:57 AM
Date: 17th February
Year: 2130
---
Hmm... Only twenty-seven minutes remained before the dungeon completed its modification.
Fuck... I gotta run fast.
